The way this war is shown to us (West) is very loopsided - Iran was never going to be able to stop the bombing and they knew it. But they still retain most of their ability to blow up anything they want around their country, which is most of oil and gas fields in the Middle East, and this time they actually proved it.

We like to think we're winning, but are we ? Iran leadership is supposedly decimated, missile capabilities destroyed etc. And yet, when Israel attacked their gas field, they immediately wiped out 17% of Qatari gas productions capacities which will take 5 years to rebuild and they could have wiped out everything. Seems their leadership structure is doing just fine.

As for all the killed - what did we actually achieve ? Replace Khamenei with his son - a guy who had all of his family blown up to pieces by US / Israeli ? That should do wonders to Iran's future relationship with those countries.

Listing a kill count doesn't amount to evidence that the war has been well thought out, it only tells us the US and Israel are good at assassinations.

It is clear the initial aim was to decapitate the leadership and expect capitulation of some form or another to follow. This obviously hasn't happened, and so the fallout grows by the day.

Many of these leaders decided to not hide underground but to become martyrs.

It is really not an accomplishment to murder someone in their own house when they have not been hiding.

Khamenei was already very old.

His security begged him to evacuate but he asked them if they can evacuate all Iranians. If they can't why should he get special treatment?

He knew he could serve his country best by becoming a martyr.

Meanwhile Israeli leader Netanyahu is so afraid to come out of his hole that people are wondering if he is still alive.

iranintl, yah that's an instant rejection.

There are zero verified sources of any mass killings by the Iranian government. In fact all evidence points to Mossad agents committing the mass killings of Iranian government officials as caught on video, including the wrestler that was just executed for killing a police officer with a machete, on video.

Then you can also fairly say they've killed billions of people - that's the upper end of estimates, could be 1, could be 10, but upper estimate is definitely billions.

Also, please read what I wrote, I meant there is no credible source in this scenario, hence no one should be able to cite anyone's numbers

> Iran has executed three men accused of killing police officers during anti-government protests in January,

As I said, West considers Iran as enemy, used words by BBC reflects this clearly.

1. "accused of" - we don't know, but lets say they're "accusing" them

2. if true, then they have killed the "police officers" (seems many?) so what do you expect from Iran?

> Hundreds of people died when security forces sought to crush the demonstrations, along with dozens of members of the police and Basij militia. Iranian intelligence operatives internally concluded that some of the violence was being encouraged and facilitated by Israeli operatives, according to the sources. “Foreign actors linked to Israeli intelligence services had, over time, established contact—through various social media platforms and under diverse cover identities—with a significant number of Iranian citizens, particularly young people,” the Iranian intelligence official alleged. These Israeli handlers, he said, “encouraged and incentivized the performance of specific tasks through a combination of financial and non-financial rewards, as well as the provision of material support, including small arms and other equipment.”

> “Foreign actors are arming the protesters in Iran with live firearms, which is the reason for the hundreds of regime personnel killed,” wrote Tamir Morag, the diplomatic correspondent for Israel’s Channel 14, during the uprising. “Everyone is free to guess who is behind it.” Morag and his network are well known for their close ties to Netanyahu.

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/iran-ministry-of-intelligence...

You also find the some information in a Israeli Newspaper:

> On December 29, what is dubbed the Mossad X/Twitter account in Farsi encouraged Iranians to protest against the Iranian regime, telling them that it is literally physically with them at the demonstrations.

> “Go out together into the streets. The time has come,” the Mossad wrote. “We are with you,” it added. “Not only from a distance and verbally. We are with you in the field.” [...]

> Foreign actors had armed Iranians to help them fight against the regime’s forces being used to crack down on and oppress protesters, Channel 14’s Tamir Morag reported Tuesday. Iran’s foreign minister retweeted the report for his own agenda.

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-883524

See also interview with Prof. Marandi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-tcwcon30M

He claims the a nurse was burned alive in a clinic by rioters.

The state TV. It’s impossible they lie.

Mossad has literally admitted to that.

Let me even quote an Israeli newspaper:

> On December 29, what is dubbed the Mossad X/Twitter account in Farsi encouraged Iranians to protest against the Iranian regime, telling them that it is literally physically with them at the demonstrations.

> “Go out together into the streets. The time has come,” the Mossad wrote. “We are with you,” it added. “Not only from a distance and verbally. We are with you in the field.” [...]

> Foreign actors had armed Iranians to help them fight against the regime’s forces being used to crack down on and oppress protesters, Channel 14’s Tamir Morag reported Tuesday. Iran’s foreign minister retweeted the report for his own agenda.

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-883524

That would be right from the text book of any psyops and insurgency operation. This is as standard operating procedure as it gets.

It would be very surprising if they didn't. Heck FBI was doing it to citizens at one point, during war against terror.

There is a name for that, "Israel Derangement Syndrome". No matter what bad thing happens, it is Israel's fault or doing (even if it happens to Israel itself).

What I can tell you is that no matter how much I hate the government of my country, I would hate a lot more the foreign country that is destroying civilian infrastructure and murdering my people.

Let's not pretend that the US and Israel regimes have the best interest of the Iranian people in mind. They want murder.

> The US and Israel have been carpet bombing Iran

No they haven't. The US started phasing out carpet bombing[0] half a century ago. You discredit yourself by making such trivially falsifiable assertions.

The US and Israel use precision strikes. It is why the ratio of targets per sortie is by far the highest ever recorded in a major conflict.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing

I think there are 5-7 thousand confirmed deaths by the UN, and medical reports in Iran estimated there could be 20,000+ casualties.

Exactly. And this also want' just a protest. They were protest in the big cities and uprising from suppressed minoritiesm which explain the death toll among people from the regime.

Iran might have at best have a self-regime change, at worst split in 3. Now that the war is on, the regime consolidated.

Arguably the country that has done the most to cement the Iranian regime is the United States with its sanctions. If Iran had been left to develop into a normal Middle Eastern oil-rich country then things might have turned out differently. The more money people have the harder it is to control them.

What it gave the US was an added incentive to take down what is unarguably one of the world's most evil and dangerous regimes.

Would you attack the US because they "murdered" thousands of Germans to take down Hitler in WW2?

Breaking a country's immigration laws does come with consequences, yes, at least if the government is willing to enforce to said laws, as it should be. Previously we had governments that weren't.

If you have a problem with those laws and think our borders should be wide open, that's of course a different matter, and one you should take up with Congress, which makes the laws.

I think those laws should be changed by the way, to be much friendlier towards Hispanic immigrants. They share our cultural values and are easy for the US to assimilate in my opinion, so long as they're properly vetted for obvious criminal behavior, ability and motivation to work, etc.

No, not just according to those factions. From the same CBS News article:

> The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency has recorded more than 7,000 killings, with the vast majority being protesters, while warning the toll could be far higher.

Neither CBS News nor this agency are friends of the factions you mention. Facts are stubborn things.

Can you back this with linking the said videos and maybe some info on legal proceedings of the fair trial in which this person was convicted? I’m curious.

The ban is on reporting the exact locations (i.e. coordinates) of where missiles land, because it's information that is useful in helping the enemy to calibrate where missiles will land. Reporting on other details is perfectly acceptable.

No, only specifics like exact locations are not publicized.

Yes, they are absolutely using civilians as human shields. Just like Israel has been doing for ages.

That is why they constantly lie about Hamas using human shields. Every accusation is a confession with these people.

>from a misguided refusal to be impressed by the regime's reputation

You have to thank the actions of the genocidal State of Israel that anything below it is somewhat acceptable. Reaping what they sow themselves.

The attacks against Kharg Island were relatively limited as even the US wanted to avoid that level of escalation. The war has been painful but Iran could rebuild, if you destroyed Kharg island it would take decades to rebuild the Iranian economy, that would be a complete scorched earth point of no return.

Maybe there have been further attacks today that I missed but if true that would be an huge escalation.

My last information was that China has no problem getting oil but that was like two days ago.

The genocide against the Palestinians has not started after October 7th though but long before the Islamic Republic of Iran even existed. In the Nakba of 1948 as much al 750k Palestinians lost their homes.

Hezbollah came to be as a resistance group against the invasion of Lebanon by Israel.

The reason both Hamas and Hezbollah exists is because Israel.

There can not be peace in the region as long as Israel exists. They are a settler colonial state build and sustaining itself by the dead bodies and suffering of the Palestinians.

> the rest of the world would have strongly condemned it to the point of military intervention on behalf of Gaza / Lebanon.

That is completely delusional.

I Iran had fallen ten years ago, there would be no Palestinians anymore. No one would have stopped Israel from killing them. Israel would have annexed South Lebanon, part of Syria, Egypt and so on and created Greater Israel.

You could've written that comment in a more constructive way.

As you probably already know, my point was that it's a bit callous to focus on "this war is expensive and inconvenient" while innocent people are, you know, dying.

one missile fails, the other is intercepted

your conclusion: US will pull those resources back?

Yep. The IRGC runs the country at this point, and they do not have anyone else's best interests in mind.

Well I live in one of those countries in Europe, it's quite embarrassing: our government basically said:

"sure we would like to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, but only under peaceful conditions"

So, suppose the peaceful conditions are obtained, they will sail back the moment a single shot is fired? They want to partake only for show? I totally agree the Hegseth fulminating speeches are over the top and tasteless show... but what were European countries saying just days ago (they are turning around these days): that they want to pose and posture and pretend to be part of the power projection group, but not actually run any risks? They are willing to waste their taxpayer money on sending a mission, but only if they are required to pose for a show?

I'm glad they are starting to think a bit deeper than the initial b-hurt about not having received prior notice... consider the huge potential for leaks if each and every nitwit politician in every nation had been informed beforehand! Sometimes when I hear local politicians speak its almost if they WANT Iran to succeed, to possess nuclear warheads and ICBM's capable of reaching Europe!

> and maybe Saudi Arabia?

The war is extremely bad for business for Saudi Arabia and has already cost them enormous amounts of money. It is causing damage to their oil refineries that will take years to repair.

The only person who gains anything out of this is Netanyahu and his friends. Everyone else loses, including the Israeli people.

False: I live in Europe, and I most definitely want Iran's ICBM, nuclear, weapons, etc facilities to be bombed to smithereens. I welcome the news every morning when I read about the exponential decay in absolute numbers of Iran's rockets and drones fired. It will take time until the last caches are depleted, but this intervention seems surprisingly cheap until now. Seeing how this evolves, its not just puzzling that this didn't happen before, its also saddening: if it was this easy to bring Iran to it's knees, a Hamas-less Gaza or Hezbollah-less Lebanon would have been spared the genocide Gaza endures now, and the instability in Lebanon now...

Europe to do what to stop the war? EU cant even stop war on their own borders. And we seen what Trump buddies think about EU in their leaked Signal chat.

Also it's not like EU and UK actually have any military capacity to bomb Iran even if they wanted because again everything they do have is going to Ukraine already.

> the US president…

The President is a political leader.

To be fair Trump admins most optimistic timeline was “4-6 weeks maybe longer”. We’re at the end of week 3.

> Iranians are white, the name "Iran" literally means "Land of the Aryans".

The Indians were also Aryan according to race theories. I wouldn't put much sense into racism

Sea Viper can defend against short / medium-range BMs impacting in its vicinity, not IRBMs passing overhead in mid-course to a distant target.

These were ballistic missiles. They are only vulnerable during the terminal phase, when they are moving at hypersonic speeds. Standard fighter jets aren't going to do it. It would take ground based THAAD, Patriot, or ship based Aegis systems. London might want to budget for that.

They can fly well above any commercial and military aircraft.

It still does/is. Most of what I'm seeing with Iran is similar to what was discussed back in the early 2010s.

There hasn't been significant churn in the NatSec space aside from political appointees, and core policymakers like Doshi, Maestro, Allison, Colby, and even Hill have worked with administrations irrespective of party affiliation.

> Iran, a fundamentalist fanatic country

United States, a fundamentalist fanatic country: https://bsky.app/profile/gregsargent.bsky.social/post/3mhgag...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47469696

I don't think they had any reason to destroy us until trump decided to kick the hornet's nest. In fact they were quite reasonable and agreed to inspections of their nuclear programme which is also something Trump broke before, and now with his petty war.

I mean they hate Israel way more than us and they never attacked them either (until this war obviously). And regime change was already happening there slowly. They would have become more moderate, the public opinion inside Iran was more and more against them especially since what they did to the protesters.

This war was unnecessary and only cemented the regime's hold on their people by giving them an external enemy.

> Anyone thinking they can talk their way into controlling Iran, a fundamentalist fanatic country with a very loud and visible doctrine literally calling to destroy the west, is delusional

Yeah, what's it about peoples of the third world that they're always fanatical, that they're always out to destroy the first world... https://theconversation.com/orientalism-edward-saids-groundb... / https://archive.vn/HoEk5

Yes, war is bad. Unless you're from the Complex. No big insight here, Mr. Rayiner.

Okay, Afghanistan as well. Afghanistan is obviously not neutral, but they haven't participated in supporting US-Israeli attack on Iran

How about now?

True on technicalities. If it isn't useful to the operation of the bombers in the region, why did it happen? And if it is useful that sounds like a UK base participating in the war

If anything, the attack on Iran has increased their support.

US and Israel don't give two fucks for the people of Iran. If they did they wouldn't have been under such crippling sanctions.

Irani people want to control their own destiny, not as a vassal of US-Israel backed power.

Iran's best bet I think is to negotiate with the IRGC to earn reforms. I suspect that if IRGC doesn't feel so threatened they might even get them.

There's a lot of commentary here along the lines that Iran is now a threat to Europe. Yes the capability might exist but it is not in Iran's interest and have never shown such interest or ambition. India certainly has missiles that can reach parts of Europe, capability does not signal intent.

US and UK have screwed the relation up by organising coup, scuttling democratic processes, downing domestic passenger jet without apology, setting Saddam Hussein and his chemical weapons at them and the economically ravaging them with sanctions.

As for nukes, with Israel and undeclared nuclear power right next door, it's a very reasonable ask for any country that wants to control its own destiny. In fact had it had one, the current conflict would not have happened.

There is at least 30-40% of the population who support it and within those, more than half will gladly die for the regime.

Sobering, and (speaking as an American) all too familiar here at home.

Cults suck.

It is impossible to know how may Iranians want the IRGC gone. But bombing schools (and bombings in general) will definitely increase the support for it.

That sounds made up. Marches largely stopped after bombings, no one marches for IRGC - not even supporters.

And there is no way for anyone to know what Iranians actually think now. No one does the polls there now.

It’s trivial for either the US or Israel to do that with one phone call (completely destroy infrastructure on kharg island and the gas fields, this yields an Iranian failed state). The fact it hasn’t happened proves you wrong.

Have you ever been in Iran? Do you know any Iranians and have you talked to them recently?

Do you know what Khomeini did to his fellow leftist who toppled the Shah?

> those "proxies" are not "against" America or Israel - they exist solely as resistance groups that counter Israeli aggression, ethic cleansing, land theft etc.

They explicitly call for the destruction of Israel.

Yeah we should meet them half way

Being empathetic to someone who wants to kill you does not make you safer. How ridiculous.

Or maybe you could ask yourself why most of the rest of the region allows the US to have military bases on their soil, and why they are so concerned about protecting themselves against Iran.

The "whole region" fears Iran more than they hate the US, judged by their behavior.

Being sitting ducks is the point.

The underlying reason is too many people will readily believe that if someone died for something it means it's worth fighting for, and this has been abused by strategists for a very long time.

I'm Catholic and Twelver Shiism is the closest thing Islam has to Catholicism. It's a really neat system.

Everyone does, the problem is that every time the US came to deliver democracy to the Middle East they left the place in a much worse shape than it was... Also I don't believe for a second Trump or Israel give a single fuck about Iranian citizens

There are lots of countries doing just the same but the West does not give a flying fuck about it. Most of the human rights violations they care about somehow related to countries that happened to have oil.

And if you tell me that US /Israel are bombing Iran to protect rights of oppressed then I have that wonderful bridge.

But that has nothing to do with this war. Like, nothing at all. Israel doing genocode in gaza and what seems like ethnical cleansing of lebanon does not have anyyhing with that either. USA threatening Greenland is also not a factor in this war.

Donald Trump does not care about protesters in Iran. His idea of regime change is "keep the regime and change head for someone who will pay me personally".

And Hegseth does not care either. He is proving his manhood.

And Israel have completely different goals, so.

It is not like Saudi were democrats. They have cut that journalist into pieces. They are violent dictatorship on their own right.

Were they caught by the same people who found WMDs in Iraq by any chance?

We have Joe Kent on mic saying Iran was not building nukes and posed no threat to the US.

The only people saying Iran was just about to get nukes are the Israelis, who've been saying that every 5 years for the last 40 years, and the only people who fell for it are magatards

I don't understand how people fall for this shit after the Iraq war scam, which was essentially the exact same propaganda

I am saying it is bad to murder people. Period.

Don't start wars. Don't assassinate neither political nor religious leaders.

Did he also released a religious decree stating as much?

Because otherwise you're comparing apples to mushrooms. Not even themselves kingdom.

No.

“ A weapon of mass destruction is a nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, or other device that is intended to harm a large number of people”

https://www.dhs.gov/topics/weapons-mass-destruction.

No. There’s a definition from the UN here if you’re interested:

https://unterm.un.org/unterm2/en/view/UNHQ/9626F6CEB2A92C9B8...

AFAICT, not by any commonly accepted definition of WMD:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon_of_mass_destruction#Def...

Oh, that would be quite a spin. We can probably see it in the Faux News soon.

Inconceivable!

flatten with what?

This is an attack on Turkish territory regardless if there's a US base, and Iranian missiles usually miss the bases anyway.

Turkey is led by a strongman leader and these are very sensitive to acts of public humiliation. So that's unwise when thinking about any negligible strategic advantage they may gain from these attacks

Mutually assured destruction does seem to deter conflict, but even assuming it works, it always seemed like a poor tradeoff to me.

Significantly reduce the frequency of small to medium-scale conflicts, in exchange for an inevitable, possibly apocalyptic nuclear conflict at some point. Maybe not this year, maybe not for centuries, but one day, someone will press the button.

Both

Iran even has a history of calling in their attacks to ensure no one gets hurt.

I don't think they did it this time, but they have in the past.

How do you know their intentions?

It's also a bit unreasonable to launch live munitions that have some 90% probability of being intercepted by a given system on a good day, while intending for "just a warning"